Many Voices: Poems Part 10

A FAREWELL

GOOD-BYE, good-bye; it is not hard to part!

You have my heart-the heart that leaps to hear Your name called by an echo in a dream; You have my soul that, like an untroubled stream, Reflects your soul that leans so dear, so near- Your heartbeats set the rhythm for my heart.

What more could Life give if we gave her leave To give, and Life should give us leave to take?

Only each other's arms, each other's eyes, Each other's lips, the clinging secrecies That are but as the written words to make Records of what the heart and soul achieve.

This, only this we yield, my love, my friend, To Fate's implacable eyes and withering breath.

We still are yours and mine, though, by Time's theft, My arms are empty and your arms bereft.

It is not hard to part-not harder than Death; And each of us must face Death in the end!

IN HOSPITAL

UNDER the shadow of a hawthorn brake, Where bluebells draw the sky down to the wood, Where, 'mid brown leaves, the primroses awake And hidden violets smell of solitude; Beneath green leaves bright-fluttered by the wing Of fleeting, beautiful, immortal Spring, I should have said, "I love you," and your eyes Have said, "I, too . . . " The G.o.ds saw otherwise.

For this is winter, and the London streets Are full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray Where life knows death, and where poor glory meets Full-face with shame, and weeps and turns away.

And in the broken, trampled foreign wood Is horror, and the terrible scent of blood, And love s.h.i.+nes tremulous, like a drowning star, Under the shadow of the wings of war.

1916.

PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR

NOW Death is near, and very near, In this wild whirl of horror and fear, When round the vessel of our State Roll the great mountain waves of hate.

G.o.d! We have but one prayer to-day- O Father, teach us how to pray.

For prayer is strong, and very strong; But we have turned from Thee so long To follow G.o.ds that have no power Save in the safe and sordid hour, That to Thy feet we have lost the way . . .

O Father, teach us how to pray.

We have done ill, and very ill, Set up our will against Thy will.

That our soft lives might gorge, full-fed, We stole our brothers' daily bread.

Lord, we are sorry we went astray- O Father, teach us how to pray.

Now in this hour of desperate strife For England's life, her very life, Teach us to pray that life may be A new life, beautiful to Thee, And in Thy hands that life to lay.

O Father, teach us how to pray.

1915.

AT PARTING

GO, since you must, but, Dearest, know That, Honour having bid you go, Your honour, if your life be spent, Shall have a costly monument.

This heart, that fire and roses is Beneath the magic of your kiss, Shall turn to marble if you die And be your deathless effigy.

1914.

INVOCATION

THE Spirit of Darkness, the Prince of the Power of the Air, The terror that walketh by night, and the horror by day, The legions of Evil, alert and awake and aware, Press round him each hour; and I pray here alone, far away.

G.o.d! call up Thy legions to fight on the side of my love, Let the seats of the mighty be cast down before him, O Lord, Send strong wings of angels to s.h.i.+eld him beneath and above, Let glorious Michael unsheath his implacable sword.

Let the whole host of Heaven take part with my dear in his fight, That the armies of h.e.l.l may be scattered like chaff in the blast, And the trumpets of Heaven blow fair for the triumph of Right.

Inspire him, protect him, and bring him home victor at last.

But if-ah, dear G.o.d, give me strength to withhold nothing now!- If the life of my life be required for Thy splendid design, Give his country the laurels, though cold and uncrowned be his brow .

Thou gavest Thy Son for the world, and shall _I_ not give mine?

1914.

TO HER: IN TIME OF WAR

ONCE I made for you songs, Rondels, triolets, sonnets; Verse that my love deemed due, Verse that your love found fair.

Now the wide wings of war Hang, like a hawk's, over England, Shadowing meadows and groves; And the birds and the lovers are mute.

Yet there's a thing to say Before I go into battle, Not now a poet's word But a man's word to his mate: Dear, if I come back never, Be it your pride that we gave The hope of our hearts, each other, For the sake of the Hope of the World.

1915.

THE FIELDS OF FLANDERS